Long hidden species carefully emerges from hiding *UPDATED*

Thought to be extinct, Marinicus Republicanus is emerging from its long dormancy and beginning to make itself known. Tonight, I attended an enthusiastic rally of at least 100 people crammed shoulder to shoulder in a beautiful home in Marin. People were informed, excited, and refused to be intimidated by the polls.

Melanie Morgan, former conservative talk show host and founder and chairman of MoveAmericaForward.org, was the big draw. As you might guess given her career, she’s a great public speaker — clear, vivacious, intelligent and amusing. She has one other quality that completely endeared her to me: she’s petite. Indeed, she’s what used to be called a Pocket Venus — a lovely woman from head to toe, only on a someone smaller scale (although at about 5’2″, she’s still taller than I am).

Melanie’s speech touched upon a few main themes, familiar to all conservatives: Obama’s “spread the wealth” socialism, his frightening unpreparedness for attacks against the US (both because of his inexperience and his temperament), the huge risk of a complete Democratic takeover of the government (a government that will be far to the Left of anything Roosevelt, Truman, Carter or even Clinton envisioned), and the death of the conservative media.

As to the last, Melanie warned those assembled to make no mistake: The very first thing an entirely Democratic government will do is pass a bill with the Orwellian title of “Fairness Doctrine.” This will mandate that any radio or TV show that has political content must give equal time to both Democrats and Republicans.

While I can guarantee you that this “fairness” won’t be imposed against MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, or CNN, the Democratic controlled FCC will come down like gangbusters against Fox News, Dennis Prager, Rush LImbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved, and any other national and local conservative shows you can think of. The FCC will warn any station carrying these shows that, unless they start airing Air America too (or like shows), they will lose their licenses. And the radio stations, unable to afford the financial black holes of liberal talk radio, will go with the obvious response: they’ll take conservative radio shows off the air. Progressives will still have MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN (since Democrats profess to believe that these networks are “objective”), but conservatives will have . . . nothing.

But that’s not entirely true. Conservatives will still have the internet, whether written or podcasts. And I think conservatives should start having guerilla radio. During World War II, resistance fighters and local partisans all over Europe set up underground radio stations that beamed real news — not Nazi propaganda — to those who still wanted the truth. Heck, even in the last Harry Potter book, the good guys set up secret radio broadcasts aimed at keeping community alive and thwarting the Death Eaters.

Don’t you love the idea of a secret Rush Limbaugh radio show? Because it will be illegal, it will immediately gain the same cachet as other illegal activities, such as marijuana use or underage drinking. College students will start having parties in darkened dorm rooms, behind locked doors, as they chase the elusive Rush across the radio dial.

Before long, these same college students, their minds finally stimulated by an alternative to the Marxist doctrine taught in their classrooms, will be taking to the streets, demanding that the government “Free Rush Limbaugh.” It will be exciting. There will be riots. Nancy Pelosi will barricade herself in her San Francisco mansion as deeply committed college students mount 24 hour a day protests on her street.

As the streets become maelstroms of free speech protests, the MSM will be forced to report on the story, complete with dire warnings about the dangers to youth from illegal conservative radio. Concerned parents, anxious to know what kind of ideology is sparking their childrens’ behavior, will “try” rush (although few will admit to this kind of mental inhaling).

To their horror, most of them will find themselves agreeing with him. Some will have to go into therapy. Many will go into deep denial. But some, those who have a youthful rebellious streak, will begin covert listening operations as well, and find themselves hanging out at skate parks trying to have the boarders give them info about the next place and time for a Rush broadcast.

After that, heck, anything can happen. Stick around long enough, and by 2012 or 2016, we may have a successful Palin-Steele, or Palin-Cantor, or Palin-Jindal ticket, that can start the long, painful work of undoing all the damage done to America by several consecutive years of unbridled socialist . . . um, Democratic rule.

Just remember, Danny, that in Soviet Russia, humor was one of the last refuges of any resistance movement. (Indeed, I believe someone has even written a book on that point.)

BrianE

Since there’s a little bit of projecting going on here…
I think Obama is positioning himself for the BIG one, I mean the really, really BIG one.
Children chanting, textbooks telling tales of triumph, hypnotic hubris for the masses.
Why should anyone care that young impressionable minds are being filled with the wonderfulness of the One? Because Obama will only be 55 when these future drones reach voterhood.
Here’s my prediction. Obama rules (that verb straight from a MSM talking head) to the middle, much to the amazement of conservatives, who find him a celibate version of Bill Clinton. Since things like a leftist supreme court can’t be tasted or felt and don’t affect taxes, there is little resistance by the masses.
He threw his grandmother and his pastor under that bus– so why not the entire leftist agenda! They will moan and whine, but will remain in line, once they understand the STRATEGY. That leaves one impediment to the monarchy– and that is the 22nd amendment.
By Obama’s sixth year, democrats will be clamoring for its repeal. Republicans will be neutered by his popularity. He will have a 102% approval rating.
And that my friends, is why you should not underestimate the One.

suek

>>Don’t you love the idea of a secret Rush Limbaugh radio show?>>

Think off-shore radio station…12.5 miles off shore!

I don’t share your sanguinity on the internet, though. I suspect there will be controls there as well. Probably through the isps somehow. Maybe through taxation or fees…if you had to pay thousands, would you still have a blog?

I think we need to establish loose networks of conservatives. Churches are probably the obvious point of connection – though I recognize that there are many conservatives who do not belong to organized religions, and many organized religions have many liberals within them. Still, they’re local, they usually have meeting spaces, and unless something changes even more drastically in the next 20 years than I think it will, they have legal cover.

Because I agree – we’re in for a period of supression if the Dems win.

McLaren

How about we skip all this nonsense and simply arm ourselves and let congress know that we know where they live and where their kids go to school? Of course I’m joking, but that exact language is currently used by the left to intimidate conservatives and even to intimidate a prosecutor who is simply doing his job.

If they try this “fairness doctrine” I can assure you there will be blood. Either I get my own entire page once a week in the New York Times, or…..well…….

Mike Devx

BrianE
>By Obama’s sixth year, democrats will be clamoring for its repeal. Republicans will be neutered by his popularity. He will have a 102% approval rating.

Would that be the same 102% as the per cent of the population of Indianapolis that has registered to vote this year? 😉 (In my home state of Michigan, 98% of the entire population has registered, I hear.)

McLaren,
> Either I get my own entire page once a week in the New York Times, or…..well…….

What about my entire page once per week? If you get one and I don’t, I will be filing a lawsuit.

(And that, my friends, is the way that station managers *will* be harassed, in coordinated attacks, to shut down conservative talk radio. The threat is real. Satellite radio will provide a refuge of sorts, for what that’s worth.)

McLaren

You’re right Mike. If talk radio is doomed, then so is every other voice.
So long, NYT, WaPo, CNN, NPR, etc…….

Mike Devx

>> If talk radio is doomed, then so is every other voice.
So long, NYT, WaPo, CNN, NPR, etc……. >>

McLaren, I don’t know if that was sarcasm or not, but actually you’re absolutely right.

If we can get organized and make sure that the libs know that we *will* be coming after their golden cows with the same ferocity they’ll be coming after ours, and they too will be harassed out of all recognition, perhaps that will be what causes them to take a deep breath and reconsider.

Via a near-monopoly on transmitting video to the masses via mainstream TV, the liberals have an incredibly powerful grip on the “national narrative”. Because of this, they control what most people are daily talking about over lunch or at the water cooler. Do they really want to risk this?

Let’s get ready. Let’s let them know that if they open this door, we’ll be walking through it, too. Let’s make it REAL to them.

McLaren

It was absolutely NOT sarcasm. You explained my sentiment perfectly.

Mike Devx

McLaren,
The problem is that only radio is to be targetted. The Democrats have made this perfectly clear. They mumble “and other media” at times, but they will craft the legislation to not apply to their news divisions in mainstream media.

So, our first effort is to sue and get this to the Supreme Court, perhaps under the “equal protection under the law” clause of the 14th Amendment. The Fairness Doctrine mustn’t be allowed to target only radio or AM radio.

Book (or others here with lawyerly bent) could discuss the best manner to legally ensure that any Fairness Doctrine applies at least to broadcast TV as well as well as broadcast radio. No matter how sleazily the Democrats try to apply it solely to radio.

Then let the lawsuits commence. It *is* war; the enemy is already on the march, and we’re late to the fronts.

Radio transmitters can be located very easily using radio direction finders and triangulation techniques. The only guerilla radio stations I ever heard of in occupied Europe were those used by resistance fighters and agents to communicate with an outside base for tactical purposes, and these communications (usually in encrypted Morse) were kept as short as possible. Even with the precautions, many of the operators were caught by the Gestapo.

Not really on-topic, but here is the tragic and heroic story of one underground radio operator.

rockdalian

If a fairness doctrine were to pass, the alternative will be satellite radio. I would not relish paying for the service, but I would.

What do you bet that the Fairness Doctrine also includes some challenge to satellite radio (“the US owns space”). By the time that gets sorted through the Courts, it will be too late…. And that’s assuming the Courts aren’t purely Democratic by then, in which case conservatives will lose regardless.

Ymarsakar

Very funny, Book.

Ymarsakar

Optimally, the threat of the filibuster and the veto should be used against the Fairness Doctrine. People won’t waste energy and time on a bill that they know is going to hit hard obstacles. Sort of like the reason people produce demoralizing propaganda about Iraq and Afghanistan. Increase the likely expected costs of an operation and you will sap people’s enthusiasm for it.

However, if the Dems can block the filibuster and the veto then we have an interesting problem. We will have to use legal means to hold the law in check, but Democrats don’t care about the SUpreme Court, the Constitution or the rule of law. THis really means that Dems won’t follow the laws anyway, lawyers or no lawyers. THey’ll mobilize lawyers, yes, but they’ll conduct their own little private lynch mobs as well.

McLaren

Well, let those limp-wristed lawyers and their lynch mobs organize and show themselves. That’s all I’m saying for now………

suek

I don’t think it will happen right away. Reason being that people are expecting it, and will have it in court on Day 1 or Day 2 at the latest. With the present Supreme Court, it probably will not pass muster and will get tossed as un-constitutional – which of course, it is – but if they wait until the second or third year of Obama’s presidency (I can’t stand even to type that!) then it’s probable that they will have leftist judges in place and may even have succeeded in adding justices so that they can pack the court ala FDR. At that point, they’ll be able to pass just about anything and the SC will pass it.

Mike Devx

I’m 100% with McLaren (#17).

In fact, now might be the best time to begin investigating your gun purchase.
Prices are only going to go up. In the interests of responsible gun ownership, I recommend taking the training class as well.

Especially if the police’s concern in several urban centers are correct about violence breaking out the evening of Nov. 4th and going forward after that.

If Obama wins, gun restrictions are certainly not going to loosen, and there’s no way to tell by how much restrictions might vastly tighten. If McCain wins, there’s no telling what kind of continued instability may result.

I think there are a lot of good people here who can recommend an excellent handgun and shotgun. And what about ammo? I could use a recommendation for each.

I’m not joking, though I *am* hoping my concerns are misplaced. I am however finally getting worried. The tone out there is uglier than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.

Thanks in advance!

McLaren

Pistol: Revolver, in .357 magnum caliber. You can shoot .38 specials from that gun if the .357 creates too much recoil for your taste. Get someting that fits your hand and feels comfortable. Too big or too small will only annoy you.

Shotgun: There are many types. I prefer a pump in 12 guage. Again, get something that is decent quality and that is easy to clean and aim and shoot. You’ll know quality when you hold it and cycle the action a few times, same as the pistol above. Ask around, go to a gun show or two and just pick some people’s brains about these things.

Practice with both. There is nothing worse than trying to figure out a firearm under stressful situations. The simpler, the better. If you have children, keep the guns stored where you or other adults can reach them. Have plenty of ammo, cleaning kits, etc.

Remember, guns are designed to be instantly lethal. You cannot make a mistake with one. So practice, practice, practice… One mistake could be your last or the last of a loved one.

Think hard about this decision.

Mike Devx

Thanks for the reply, McLaren. This includes the warning at the end.

I’ve always said that if there is a gun in a house and there is even one person living in the house who is not completely trained on that gun and on gun safety, get that gun OUT of the house immediately or get it irrefutably locked away. The household has been horribly irresponsible in that case, because guns are in fact very dangerous. That one untrained person in the house is FAR more of a danger to everyone else in the house than any other potential danger. (Unless you live in one of those collapsed urban neighborhood where shots are often heard in the night…)

A good friend of mine mentioned the .38 special and he has a .357! He also mentioned heading out to a gun show. I’ll be looking around, no rush.

He said lightweight plastic guns these days are durable enough not to worry about wear and tear. What do you think? Metal or plastic? He’d go with single action over double action; what’s your opinion?

The 12-gauge pump shotgun sounds like a very standard, very common shotgun. Is that right?

Thanks again for the notes on training and readiness. I completely agree.

McLaren

You are already on the right track, vis a vis safety. My 4-year-old already knows the “Stop, Don’t Touch, Run Away, Tell an Adult” mantra if he sees a gun.

And your friend is correct, today’s polymers are quite capable. Personally, I prefer steel only because it stabilizes my hold a bit better and reduces recoil a bit. But that’s me. You can rent different guns at shops/ranges and decide what you like.

If I am using a revolver, I prefer a double-action over single-action. I like the option of being able to shoot from a position where the hammer is not cocked. Again, that’s just me. I own a single-action and I love it. But my double-action is a tiny bit safer, especially in a stressful situation. Now, shooting from a resting, double-action position, accuracy does get compromised slightly because the effort needed to make the pull. But handguns aren’t sniper weapons, but close-quarter weapons where center-mass should be your target.

As for a 12-guage pump, yes it is very common. You can’t spit in some states without hitting one. 😉

The bottom line is that a gun is like wine: The best is the one you like, not the one everybody says you should like.

Ymarsakar

I believe weapons training (firearms, sticks, knives, and open handed) should be taught to children beginning perhaps at 6 years of age depending on personal maturation and discipline.

This is not something you can expect Helen to support, of course, but I’m not Helen.

He said lightweight plastic guns these days are durable enough not to worry about wear and tear.

The weight will affect the recoil, I believe. Which may or may not matter depending on how fast you can get the handgun back on target.

Metal or plastic?

9 mm plastic seems alright but the stopping power is hugely bad. If you use JHP, Europeans call that illegal now if I recall, it won’t ricochet (hit your dog or children or something when you miss or shoot through a target) if it is JHP and it will have far more stopping power. But I don’t buy ammo so I can’t tell you which guns use that type of ammo or not.

Many others I know that own handguns prefer the 1911 .45. It is combat tested if you value that sort of thing. There are composite versions of it as well in usp.

He’d go with single action over double action; what’s your opinion?

You should check out your house, your battle environment, and figure out whether you actually can use a shotgun in the tight corridors of your house or whether you are just going to use it outside from your doorstep.

Unless you are using buckshot, which doesn’t seem very safe in a home with your family at, the slugs of a shotgun doesn’t offer much more than pistols. Huge stopping power but low ammo and slow reload. You could get an automatic shotgun, but that seems to be overkill.

Also worry about the ammo you are going to use because if you want to train with that ammo, ammo costs are going to depend entirely on how expensive or inexpensive the ammo is.

I get my training and readiness from Target Focus Training. Nice for when you go through metal detectors and can’t carry what you wish you could carry. It’s also nice since nobody can disarm you of your body and use it against you like they could with a dropped knife or gun. Training in open hand against knives and guns are also an interesting psychological preparation for fighting in situations where you are outclassed. Dealing with the fear now will prevent a freeze in actuality.

Ymarsakar

Btw, FMJ ammo is very dangerous in a home because of potential ricochets and the fact that it goes through walls (more than one depending on the power). Since it is unlikely that you will ever encounter a criminal or target that has tactical armor vests, you will probably only ever need JHP. I seem to recall that Jacketed Hollow Points are more expensive than FMJ, though, not sure. Ask McLaren.

Good point about Target Focus Training and, more generally, hand-to-hand and personal self-defense. I’m never out and about after 10 pm, especially on weekends, so I’m not exposed to high-risk situations. But you never know.

McLaren

JHP= Jacketed Hollow Points. The brass jacket goes up about half-way on the round and then stops. The lead point is hollow to allow the round to expand, and stay put, on impact.

Ymarsakar

JHP is known in Europe (at least in the past) as, what do they call it? Dummy something. It’s an anti-personnel round designed to transfer the entire kinetic energy of a bullet into the target area. FMJ, Full Metal Jacket, is normally for penetration where the kinetic energy goes through soft targets like flesh (or concrete for .50 caliber).

Recoil for a handgun matters in say, for example, you have a person who you have shot twice and won’t stay down. His buddies are around him but incoming at separate angles (never likely but it is one of the worst case scenario). A heavier handgun can take recoil better because the weight makes for a less jerky firing sequence. This allows you to put the sights back on target faster.

Normally, however, that’s really only useful for rapid fire pistol marksman courses or practices. In real life, hitting someone with a JHP round or a .45 will take them down and they will stay down. In most normal cases of criminal violence, once you pull out the gun and shoot one of your attackers or his buddy (or the leader), the rest will disperse at so fast a rate you will run out of targets very fast.

Statistically, this is just how criminal violence goes down. Criminals go after easy targets and victims. They normally avoid armed targets. They aren’t professional soldiers or even hired mercenaries (thugs). If you are facing a mob or gang, however, the same dynamic gets into play once the leader is down. A mob that has already flashed into a rage, however, will need something to stop the Brownian Motion of their charge. Tear gas or buckshot or horses are very effective at getting large crowds of people moving in the direction you want them to move. However, most street riots are not so much lynch mobs (incited by one or more specific persons to target a specific location or person) than they are a bunch of opportunists just moving in the general direction for (loot, mayhem, etc). The latter will avoid armed confrontation and lethal force cause they aren’t there to fight but to loot and enjoy burning stuff.

I’m never out and about after 10 pm, especially on weekends, so I’m not exposed to high-risk situations.

One of the first mental shifts for an unarmed citizen after he or she becomes an armed citizen is the recognition that you are more dangerous to the criminals than the criminals are to you. This is not so much cockiness and over-confidence as it is the instant recognition that 1. Criminals use lethal force only if they need it to get what they want while 2. I will use lethal force against criminals because the law here in Georgia allows it for self-defense and because criminals are outlaws. The Rules of Engagement are different. Outlaws, in the Old West, were treated the same as pirates were on the high seas. They are termed enemies of humanity and may be legally tried and executed by any national or civilian authority. The reason is very simple. Civilization and nations exist in a balance of power that requires the explicit recognition of a “social compact”: this is between the citizens of a nation and between nations and nations. Criminals are outside the law and social compact that allows human beings to work, live, and compete together.

Most criminals are not sociopaths or stone cold killers. However, that’s not exactly an assumption you want to be making once you are facing one or more of em. When a person pulls out a gun or threatens your life, it is always wise to take his word as fact even if he is only using it as a bluff.

Because Target Focus Training forces you to adopt the same Rules of Engagement as the worst of the criminals, terrorists, and pirates in this world, this means that you are operating at de facto OODA advantage compared to any lesser criminal. This is why you become more dangerous than criminals as an armed citizen. It is not because you have a gun, or know how to break joints, or are bigger, stronger, faster than your enemy. It is because you are operating at a level that not even most criminals are operating under. TFT trains you to unleash instantaneous death the same way serial killers and assassins conduct their operations. Against a petty crook, mob thug, or even physical battery/assault with a llethal weapon assailant, there is no contest. They are using force or the threat of force to make you give them what they want. You, however, only need to kill, maim, and break them apart. The latter is much simpler on a Rules of Engagement (OODA) level than the former.

This is actually the reverse of the United States Marines vs Al Qaeda terrorists. In that situation the US Marine has the longer OODA loop and more restricted rules of engagement because AQ uses martyr bombs, suicide bombers, command detonated cannonfodder bombers, children in VBIEDs, and various other things like human shields. AQ has the less complex ROE in this situation because AQ doesn’t care which civilians die or not while the US does. Al Qaeda has less social restrictions than the US cause AQ is sociopathic. On the same level, criminals have less social restrictions than law abiding citizens, Mike. A law abiding citizen that has armed himself and taken up the duty of defending family and society, however, has no restrictions when facing criminals. Not even by law, for the law won’t help the criminal, it will only punish the defender after the fact. Bad for you and bad for the criminal as well. It’s still no benefit to the criminal to have a law that will prosecute the victim for disproportionate use of force. And the fact that I am only using my bare hands also mean that “disproportionate use of force” will be very hard to prove given my normal body weight vs my attackers. Another advantage of open/empty hand methods.

For the criminal, his ROE works most of the time against law abiding citizens. How many times have you been told by the police “just give the guy what he wants. It ain’t worth your life”. In reality, it isn’t worth the criminal’s life to try to take stuff from me by force or threat. There is a fundamental difference in world view and philosophy there. His ROE works because law abiding citizens are …. law abiding. That means they have natural and healthy conditioning, set by society and community, not to steal, not to kill, not to murder, not to blow stuff up, and so forth. Humans are social animals first and foremost. That means we want to fit in and to belong. And since the cost to fitting in is obeying the law and the leaders, that is what human beings do from day 1. However, some humans are sociopathic or have chosen a different path. Human society, in fact, has evolved to the point where society can no longer be protected just by a “strong man” like in the days of European Feudalism or Absolute Monarchy. Now we need more than just a single exceptional individual to protect what we call the Republic. Now we need the armed might of every citizen, or as many as we can get, to defend the Republic.

Mike Devx

Y #27
>> On the same level, criminals have less social restrictions than law abiding citizens, Mike. A law abiding citizen that has armed himself and taken up the duty of defending family and society, however, has no restrictions when facing criminals. Not even by law, for the law won’t help the criminal, it will only punish the defender after the fact. Bad for you and bad for the criminal as well. >>

I’d not really be out on patrol defending society, Y. I guess if enough of us are protecting our families and our “castles”, or are out there using concealed carry, then by numbers we actually would end up defending society from violent criminals. We’d have a “mass effect” by numbers on the criminals, and worse for them, because we’d be hidden among the sheep they wouldn’t know which of the sheep *we* are.

>> His [ the criminal’s ] ROE works because law abiding citizens are …. law abiding. That means they have natural and healthy conditioning, set by society and community, not to steal, not to kill, not to murder, not to blow stuff up, and so forth. Humans are social animals first and foremost. That means we want to fit in and to belong. >>

I so completely agree. I’d note that the 9-11 hijackers depended precisely on this passivity. And now, at least on jet airplanes, such passivity is completely abolished – by mutual passenger consent. I dare anyone to try to hijack an airline anytime. They’d be ripped to shreds, as no one is willing to let themselves be flown into buildings as bombs and have their carcasses burned, hopefully not alive.

At some point you have to wonder when the same passivity in the face of murderous aggression on the streets will be abolished by mutual citizen consent as well. If the truly incredible levels of aggression and hatred and instability – nearly all on the left – surrounding this election blows up in our faces, that moment could arrive sooner than anyone thinks.

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